Part 20

(Go to Part 1 for the beginning.)

(Continued from Part 19)

 A week of sleeping in my car decimates my dream of becoming a photographer and fills me with gloom. Instead of showering every day I take hand baths in public restrooms, focusing on the sink to avert the disapproving stares and cold smirks.

Its noon on Saturday and I make a welcome discovery -- loose change behind the front car seat. Enough to buy peanut butter. I’m standing with the posture of a Neanderthal in a slow line at the grocery store and grumbling, What’s holding everything up?! I’m famished. The culprit is an inconsiderate screwball who is arguing with the cashier. Everyone in line is staring daggers at the customer for the inconvenience. I can’t see the inconsiderate screwball but when I finally get a good look my daggers suddenly melt. The source of the irritation is drop-dead gorgeous. Long brown hair and a form that should be in the Louvre. She glares at the cashier and says, I ask you to take care of the fruit and you throw it. Why?! The cashier gives her a Who cares? look and tells her she treats her stuff like everybody else’s stuff and to move on unless she wants her groceries delivered in which case she has to fill out a form. I don’t want a delivery, she says. I’ve had enough of your help, thank you, and she scoops up four huge paper bags of groceries that are obviously too much of a load and sways like an Olympic weightlifter going for the gold. Miraculously she manages to leave without dropping anything but when I get outside I see she’s dropped everything. She’s kneeling on the sidewalk in the middle of what could be a rough rendering of Van Gogh’s Starry Night with a dozen star-suns that are broken eggs surrounded by a slowly swirling sky of black cherry soda.

I kneel down to help. Please, don’t, she says. I’ve got it. She’s not even looking at me, gathering things too fast and dropping them again and when I say, I don’t mind, she raises her fair face. Instantly I’m mesmerized by the sparkling eyes and full pouting lips. We’re gazing at each other and there’s something unspoken that seems to click, something chemical. A weak smile comes to her face and she says, Sorry I was such a bitch. I’m an actress and I had a rotten audition this morning. I blew it. This isn’t my day. By the way, I’m Francesca. If you’re Frank that means we’ve basically got the same name. She shakes my hand warmly and doesn’t take it away, and between the chemical look and the electric touch I’m quite taken with this damsel in distress who has the most beautiful name I’ve ever heard -- Francesca. I was supposed to do some temp work today but it fell through. Things could be worse, I say. I lost my job last week. Sorry, she says, and I say, Don’t be. I was a houseman but it’s just as well cuz I’m really a photographer.

Have breakfast with me, she says. Whenever I mess-up an audition I over-shop and eat for two and I definitely don’t need the extra pounds so you’d be doing me a favor. Have you eaten? Good. I’ll make brunch if you have the guts to risk it? I stare at her thinking she’s the one with the guts, risking a total stranger in her home and I wonder if that’s common in LA or if she’s as lonely as I am.

(to be continued every Tuesday)